Flexible Computing Platform (FCP) is a communications platform that includes a 5.9 GHz enabled, wireless communications chip that is capable of interacting with nearby vehicles (less than 700 m) via Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC). DSRC is a wireless band dedicated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the use of safety and non-safety vehicular communications, be it vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to/fro-infrastructure. Once the chip and associated radio components are resident in the vehicle, there is essentially no incremental cost of inter-vehicle communications for additional applications that use this communication link, as the hardware and the energy to operate the hardware will already be onboard.
Pertinent background information for the present invention also resides in one unmet, non-safety-related need: human relationships. As can be see from the chart below, as presented in Williams, Brian; Stacey C. Sawyer, Carl M. Wahlstrom (2005), Marriages, Families & Intimate Relationships. Boston, Mass.: Pearson. 0-205-36674-0, the number of single-adult households is on the rise and is predicted to exceed the number of dual-adult households in 2010.
Families (69.7%)Non-families (31.2%)Married couples (52.5%)Nuclear WithoutOther bloodSingles (25.5%)YearfamilychildrenSingle ParentsrelativesMaleFemaleOther non-family200024.1%28.7%9.9%  7%10.7%14.8%5.7%197040.3%30.3%5.2%5.5% 5.6%11.5%1.7%
“Just under 2.2 million couples married in 2003 . . . [constituting] the lowest overall rate of all time . . . and lower than the 7.9 per thousand at the dismal heart of the Great Depression in 1932,” (NCHS 2004, U.S. Statistical Abstracts 2001 and 1970). Many factors have been attributed to this decline in unions, but the emergence of MySpace as one of the holders of the title for most monthly hits for a website (as reported by hitwise.com), and the entry of Match.com and eHarmony.com into the list of top 25 websites suggests that people are still interested in finding other people. In 2007, mediapost.com reported that eHarmony has experienced a 626% year-over-year growth in sales (MySpace, Match.com, Mediapost and eHarmony are trademarks of the respective owners.)
Therefore, there is an unmet need to provide electronic communications between vehicles to allow operators and/or passengers of those vehicles to identify common bonds or similarities between those of one motor vehicle in close proximity to those in another motor vehicle.